


only drinking

by bluecarrot



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Consensual Sex, Emotions, F/M, Past Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-05-12 21:48:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19237753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluecarrot/pseuds/bluecarrot
Summary: Even Jaime had said it.You're much uglier in daylight.Maybe firelight was gentler .*This is not a game. This is only drinking.





	only drinking

**Author's Note:**

  * For [holograms](https://archiveofourown.org/users/holograms/gifts).



> written 15 june 2019.  
> this is a gift to holograms.
> 
> it's canon! sort of! possibly!
> 
> my apologies for any horrible inaccuracies i have taken with the hallowed world or geography of ASOIAF, though frankly it can't be any worse than what the showwriters did

"Drink,” he said: and holding his eyes, she drank.

  

 _Drink,_  she’d told him, holding up her hands to his mouth. Two hands, cupped full of river water.

He used to drink from gold cups. He used to have two hands.

The water dripped thru her fingers and she bent for more and held it out and waited, silent. She was merciless.

He drank.

_Again,_  she said.  _You need to live._

So he did.

 

“Again,” he said, and poured out more. “You’ve barely started.”

“This is only  _drinking_.”

“It’s good Dornish wine.”

“Is that justification for getting drunk?”

“Who’s _drunk?_ ” he said, sounding outraged. “ _I’m_  not drunk. Are  _you_  drunk?”

“Goodness,” she said, and drank.

  

_If you get us killed,_ he had said to her, whispering,  _I will find you in the next world and tell the ancestors you’re a coward and a liar._

They were on a horse, face to face. His stinking rotting hand hung between them and bounced with every step of the horse.

There were a lot of steps.

She gave a sniff of derision.  _I’m sure they have already heard plenty of tales about you._

_Meaning?_

She didn’t answer.

After a while his eyes drifted shut and his head dropped down and rested on her shoulder, just a moment, until the jolting jerked him away and moved them apart.

 

“It’s bloody hot in here.” 

He was complaining again, he was always complaining, nothing was ever to suit his taste. Clothes, food, weather. Her company, too; he often complained of her company. She’d think he was the most pathetic sort of person — except that she saw him held his tongue about things that mattered. His hand, for one. The cage he’d been in when they met.

Eventually he stopped complaining about her terrible  _height_ , her terrible  _looks_ , her overall  _beastliness,_ and she had thought — she’d thought —

She said: “I like a warm room.”

“Southerner,” he mocked.

“So are you.”

“Yes, but we Lannisters are hardy types -- lord, woman, tamp down the fire! Do you aim to broil a man alive?”

She didn’t move. “You’ve no place to tell me what to do, or who to — I mean — that is, I don’t need a man in my rooms at all.”

“No man,” he said, “or not this one?”

 

_No need to edge away. I’m in no fit position to abuse you, even if I wanted to do it._

She settled back against the wall of the bath, wary.

He shut his eyes then, so she looked at him — his face, and injured arm, and then down. 

The water didn’t conceal much.

 

“You’re drunk. Go away.”

“I came here to drink.”

To drink, or to get her drunk?There were reasons she didn’t partake, good practical reasons, and she had forgotten most of them tonight. Caught up in the moment. That was always a mistake, around men. Didn’t she know that by now?

But she’d thought she was safe from him — from him  _wanting_ her — wanting  _that_. Safe around him.

She wasn’t sure that was true anymore.

 

“If you don’t drink more of this wine, I shall be compelled to finish it myself. _Forced._ Do you really want to see that? A drunk lord is a terrible thing to behold. All talk and no ... nothing to stand up.”

She took the bottle away from him and set it on the table. “Behave yourself.”

“I don’t want to behave.” He took up the bottle and shook it, listening. “There’s enough for another cup. For you or for me?”

She took it back again and held it. “Are you a coward, that you need to be drunk to be brave?”

He stared at her. “You called me that before. I didn’t like it any better then.”

  

_It’s yours,_ he’d told her, refusing to take back the sword he'd given her, saying some nonsense about honor and oaths intended to placate. 

It worked so well that it was only later she'd realized what he had done.

Far later. She was alone and traveling and could not sleep and thought of his expression and felt warm, thinking -- he knew exactly what to say to get her to do what he wanted --

\-- what she didn’t want to do —

No. He'd argued her into doing what she wanted to do in the first place. He knew her that well.

Alone in the darkness with only the sound of wind and trees and Pod sleeping nearby, she flushed deep red.

 

He could be doing that again. Coming here — drinking — making  _her_  drink —

Did he look at her and know what she wanted, just like that? 

But no, he was sweating and swearing and fumbling at his clothes, he was  _nervous_ , he was never nervous, she had heard him scream in pain and cry over it when he was sick but she had never seen him want something and not know he could have it, just by wanting it. Tywin Lannister’s son, the golden boy.

What must that be like? Wanting: and having.

She'd never allowed herself to want anything at all. Not since she was fourteen, not since she understood she was ugly - - would always be ugly -- and what that meant.

Did she need to be drunk, to be brave?

 

He was tugging at his laces, being terribly slow about things. “Step aside,” she told him.  _Idiot_.

So he reached for hers.

“What are you doing?” she said, and

“You know already,” he said.

**Author's Note:**

> i don't like things growing on me, he lied, feeling something grow and enjoying it very much
> 
> *
> 
> Jaime was going to say that drunk lords are “All talk, no cock” but he remembered he was speaking to a LADY, ahem


End file.
